The Dossier of North Wind

1,165 words

Hearing Li Huowang's question, the eunuch immediately began explaining with deferential clarity.

"In answer to Your Excellency's question, any ordinary job below the Banner rank is assigned this way. If you were to climb higher, well, things would be rather different…"

Listening to the eunuch's meticulous account, Li Huowang found that it matched exactly what Tuoba Danqing had told him.

The Supervisory Heavenly Office was tight on the inside but loose on the outside. If you wanted to climb, the constraints would tighten accordingly.

By the time you reached the rank of Chief Recorder, you were essentially a court official. You had official robes, and there were superiors overseeing you.

But in exchange, you gained access to the good things that ordinary Office members never saw — methods to dispel obsessions and extend life, rare techniques and treasures kept within the Office's private stores. The higher your rank, the better the things your salary could buy.

Of course, if you were just a freelance agent like Li Huowang, you got none of that. At best, you could trade some yang-life pills for basic supplies.

As for when an outer-circle member could enter the inner circle — that depended entirely on your performance.

Only when the Office's leadership deemed a person diligent enough, clever enough, and trustworthy enough in background would they send someone to negotiate in detail.

But Li Huowang didn't care about any of that. He had his own purpose.

"What jobs are available in the Office regarding the Zuowandao?"

"Please wait a moment, Your Excellency. This servant will fetch them for you." The eunuch bowed his head and withdrew from behind the screen.

Seeing Li Huowang's move, Sima Lan frowned slightly. Beside him, the blind bird spoke: "Why are you only looking for the Zuowandao?"

"I have a grudge against them." Li Huowang gave the most normal answer imaginable.

Sima Lan didn't seem to believe it, but he didn't ask further.

Before long, the eunuch returned, both hands holding a stack of paper covered in writing.

"Your Excellency, these are all—" Before he could finish, Li Huowang snatched them and began flipping through one by one.

But he went through every page from start to finish and found no trace of North Wind.

When Li Huowang looked up again, Sima Lan had already left without him noticing.

He couldn't be bothered. He turned directly to the eunuch. "How come these are all small fry? And 'suspected' at that — not even confirmed. Don't you have jobs targeting the Four Joys or the Three Yuans?"

Hearing this, the eunuch was visibly startled. "Oh heavens, Your Excellency! If there were a job involving the Four Joys or Three Yuans, that would be a major incident. The Office would have dispatched people to deal with it already — there wouldn't be any left to pick through slowly!"

"Let this servant tell you, there are different grades of jobs. The Zuowandao's Four Joys and Three Yuans — those are Grade C. Extremely urgent. Speed is essential. There's no time to leave them sitting here for leisurely selection."

Li Huowang nodded in understanding. That made sense. If the Office didn't react quickly to Zuowandao high-rankers, the people of Liang would be turned upside down.

But now he was stuck. He had come here, yet had no clue how to find North Wind.

After a moment's thought, Li Huowang asked again: "Are there any records about the Four Joys or Three Yuans? Anything at all."

"Yes, Your Excellency. Please wait — this servant will look for them."

Li Huowang had asked on a whim, but to his surprise, the eunuch actually brought back a thick stack. "Your Excellency is a Banner rank. You are permitted to view these."

Li Huowang took the documents and began searching quickly. This time, his target was still North Wind.

After all this trouble, he finally got a result. Three years ago, in Tanzhou's Tanyang County — North Wind's last known appearance.

According to the Office's records, he had appeared there to control a Heart-Element alongside East Wind.

He had claimed that if the Heart-Element didn't follow their instructions, North Wind would kill the family members inside the Heart-Element's hallucinations.

Seeing this, Li Huowang frowned but kept reading.

As one of the Four Joys, North Wind was naturally very powerful. He could instantly plunge someone into Bewilderment, and in coordination with East Wind, swap their bodies.

With a single glance, they could exchange bodies with anyone they wanted. And this ability could persist even after he had already swapped into someone else's.

Inside Tanyang County, chaos reigned because of them. Grandmothers ended up in their daughters-in-law's bodies. Husbands ended up in their grandsons' bodies.

The natural bonds of family had been twisted into utter disorder.

More importantly, as one of the Four Joys, North Wind was an expert at exploiting human darkness. Under his deception, ordinary people quickly became accomplices.

That wasn't all. When cornered, North Wind had taken a seventeen-year-old girl and, through deception alone, turned her into one of the Zuowandao's Five Bars in less than an hour.

The final result: the lives of one Chief Recorder and one Supervisor were lost before they secured the Heart-Element and claimed East Wind's life.

Li Huowang flipped the pages back and forth, memorizing everything about North Wind.

He knew what a Chief Recorder was. The so-called Supervisor was likely even higher. And this was the result after mobilizing over a dozen people — proof enough of North Wind's strength.

More importantly, North Wind's abilities were exceptionally bizarre. He could swap people's bodies. And he could turn a normal person into one of his own through sheer deception.

Li Huowang felt the weight of it now. He finally understood the true strength of the Zuowandao's Four Joys.

For someone like him, facing such an existence was nearly impossible.

If there was any good news, it was only this: Li Huowang was no longer completely in the dark about his enemy.

"But… could North Wind really threaten the people inside the Heart-Element's hallucinations?" Li Huowang felt a flicker of hesitation.

The thought of his mother and Yang Na being threatened by the Zuowandao — possibly even completely deceived by them — twisted his expression into something savage.

"Your Excellency? Do you have any further instructions?" the eunuch asked carefully.

Li Huowang handed the documents back. "Return these."

"Yes, Your Excellency." Just as the eunuch was about to withdraw behind the screen, Li Huowang stopped him.

"Wait. With my current token, can I access most of the Office's books?"

"Yes, Your Excellency. All four repositories are available."

Hearing this, Li Huowang clenched his fist. "I want books and records about the Heart-Element. As many and as detailed as possible."

He knew he was a Heart-Element. But there was one question that had always weighed on him: What exactly was a Heart-Element?

Now that he was here, he wanted to see how the Supervisory Heavenly Office explained it.

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Reading Guide Decoding

Hunting a Ghost — Li Huowang Learns the True Shape of His Enemy

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

The Four Joys and the Three Yuans (四喜三元): These are the Zuowandao's true high-rankers — named after gambling terms. "Four Joys" refers to four winning hands in domino tiles; "Three Yuans" refers to the top three passing scores in the imperial examination. The Zuowandao twist these auspicious names into threats. North Wind is one of the Four Joys, which puts him at the apex of the organization's power structure.

The Heart-Element (心素): At this point in the story, "Heart-Element" is still a puzzle box. We know it's a rare human constitution, valuable as an alchemical ingredient, and capable of belief-driven reality warping. But Li Huowang has never had a clear, authoritative explanation. The Office's archives might give him — and the reader — the first systematic definition. Given that this novel builds its horror around the "Cultivate the False into Reality" principle, whatever the Office has written down is likely to be cold, clinical, and absolutely terrifying.

Body-swapping in xianxia folklore: The ability to swap bodies is a rare and deeply unsettling power. Traditional Daoist folklore speaks of "seizing a body" (夺舍) — a technique usually reserved for immortal practitioners whose own bodies have failed. What makes North Wind and East Wind's variant uniquely horrifying is that they can do it at a glance, repeatedly, and the ability persists in the new body. It's an anti-cultivation power: it doesn't strengthen the self; it erases the boundary between selves.

Face-Changing (变脸, bianlian)

A traditional Sichuan opera technique where performers rapidly switch between painted masks; in the Dao-Twisted World, it becomes an immediate psychological trigger for Li Huowang, who associates any change of face with Zuowandao deception.

Chapter Overview

Li Huowang finally dips his toes into the bureaucratic machinery of the Supervisory Heavenly Office, and — surprise, surprise — it's both exactly what he expected and far more unsettling. He's not here to climb the ranks or make friends; he's hunting prey. Specifically, North Wind of the Zuowandao's Four Joys. What he finds in the Office's dusty records doesn't just confirm how outmatched he is — it forces him to confront a terrifying question he's been dodging ever since he learned he was a Heart-Element. The chapter is a masterclass in information as horror: the more Li Huowang learns, the more the walls close in.

Key Plot Points

The eunuch explains the Office's inner/outer circle system: freelancers (Li Huowang's tier) get scraps, while high-rankers like the Chief Recorder get longevity techniques and forbidden techniques. But climbing means tighter control.
Li Huowang rejects the buffet of possible jobs and insists on hunting only Zuowandao. Sima Lan questions him briefly but doesn't press.
He flips through every available job slip but finds nothing on North Wind — only small fry and "suspected" leads. The eunuch explains that Grade C targets (like the Four Joys) are handled immediately, not left for browsing.
Pivoting, Li Huowang requests historical records and finally finds North Wind's last confirmed appearance: three years ago in Tanyang County, working with East Wind.
The records reveal North Wind's terrifying portfolio: instant Bewilderment, body-swapping through eye contact (persistent even after swapping again), weaponizing human darkness to recruit accomplices, and converting a 17-year-old girl into a "Five Bars" Zuowandao in under an hour through pure deception.
The Office's response cost a Chief Recorder and a Supervisor their lives, plus over a dozen agents. They secured the Heart-Element and killed East Wind, but North Wind escaped.
Li Huowang realizes a new, crushing layer of vulnerability: North Wind can reach into hallucinations to threaten loved ones. The thought of his mother and Yang Na being used as leverage triggers a visceral, furious reaction.
He then demands every available record on the Heart-Element itself — determined to finally understand what he actually is.

Reading Guide

Alright, fellow cultivators (and the traumatized among you), settle in. This chapter is a slow-burn information dread chapter — the kind that doesn't throw a monster at you but makes you realize the monster is smarter, more experienced, and scarier than you could have imagined. North Wind's dossier is a nightmare: he doesn't just fight — he converts people into his own ranks by weaponizing their worst impulses. That seventeen-year-old girl turned into a Five Bars in an hour? That's not combat; that's contagion.

And then there's the punchline: he can reach into your hallucinations. Li Huowang has spent this whole time thinking his mother and Yang Na were safe because they were in a different "layer." North Wind says: no such luck. The moment that thought sinks in, Li Huowang's hunt stops being about revenge and starts being about prevention.

Also — the Office bureaucracy is chilling in its own way. The eunuch is polite, efficient, and clearly scared of what Li Huowang might do. And Sima Lan watches him like a hawk. Li Huowang isn't hunting alone; he's being watched by people who could flip on him the second he becomes a liability.

The chapter ends with a new quest: "What is the Heart-Element?" The Office has the answer. The question is whether Li Huowang — or the reader — is ready for it.